Briefs
Cal volleyball players awarded
A pair of California University women’s volleyball players were named to the Raven First Serve Invitational All-Tournament Teams.
Lois van Schaik and Sarah Benson earned first- and second-team honors, respectively, after leading the Vulcans to a 3-1 start in their opening tournament in New Hampshire.
van Schaik had 28 kills and 13 blocks, while Benson led Cal with 147 assists and 43 digs in four games.
Concert forces
field replacement
South Carolina is fully replacing its football field less than a week before the season opener after hosting a Jay-Z and Beyonce concert.
Crews trucked in sod from Sugar Hill, Ga., after the old field had to be removed following the superstar couple’s concert last week.
South Carolina staff will spend Monday installing more than 90,000 square feet of Bermuda grass, said Clark Cox, the school’s assistant athletics director in charge of turf and landscaping services.
The field is expected to be ready when South Carolina opens the season by hosting Coastal Carolina Sept. 1. The Gamecocks also have home games against national runner-up Georgia Sept. 8 and against Marshall Sept. 15.
“We would not have done this if we believed there was a safety issue,” he said. “My job and our entire ground staff’s job, our No. 1 priority in everything we do is safety and welfare of our student-athletes.”
South Carolina had planned for the possibility of such a changeout when Williams-Brice Stadium was picked as a stop for Jay-Z and Beyonce’s tour about 18 months ago, athletic director Ray Tanner said.
Concert crews needed about a week to set up the massive stage used for Tuesday night’s show. Coach Will Muschamp and his players were among the 40,000 or so who attended.
A hard cover was put over the field to protect it from wear and tear caused by construction of the stage and concert-goers. But when the cover was removed, it was clear the grass had died and needed to be replaced, Cox said.
The replacement cost, which Tanner estimated as between $150,000 to $200,000, was covered by concert promoters.
Cox’s crew removed the dead grass and prepared the field for its new sod. Machines rolled out the strips of sod in place while crews cut off appropriate strips to meld one section into another.
Decker retires
from NFL
Receiver Eric Decker says he is retiring from the NFL after an eight-year career with the Broncos, Jets and Titans.
Decker had been in training camp with the Patriots this summer, but it wasn’t clear he would make the roster. He said on Instagram on Sunday, “This has been a passion inside of me since I was a little boy but now it is time for me to hang up my helmet and start a new chapter in my life.”
Decker caught 439 passes for 5,816 yards and 53 touchdowns in his career. He had three 1,000-yard receiving seasons, including a career-best 1,288 yards on 87 receptions in 2013 with Denver, when he reached the Super Bowl for the only time in his career.
He had two catches for 12 yards this preseason.